While Biden's win was impressive, …
It wasn’t impressive.
Typically, an opposition-party challenger who unseats and incumbent U.S. President experiences a minimum of a 10-point national shift with percentage-points margin in the U.S. Popular Vote. Had 2016 Republican pickup winner Donald Trump won the U.S. Popular Vote, his margin would have reached +2. (I estimate +2.15 to +2.64.) Figure…one net gain in flipped states with each percentage point nationally shifted to that Republican or Democratic pickup winner. (Trump, following 2012’s Mitt Romney, flipped six states—including four of the nation’s Top10 populous states—and a congressional district which is nearly half its statewide vote.) 2020 Democratic pickup of the presidency, following an adjusted 2016 U.S. Popular Vote margin of –2, should have reached approximately +8 percentage points. (A national margin of +8 for a winning Democrat would be 29 or 30 carried states.)
Joe Biden did not perform impressively. He got by. (And with a pandemic having struck on the watch of incumbent Trump.)
